Biden: Hey, none of us knew that the Benghazi consulate wanted more security! Update: CBS News: Biden’s got some clean-up to do on Libya; Update: White House: No, really, we had no idea

posted at 10:01 am on October 12, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

This was easily the most disturbing moment of the entire debate — so much so that media outlets like the Washington Post and BuzzFeed immediately published rebuttals to Joe Biden’s claim at the end of the debate. When Martha Raddatz opened the event by talking about Libya, Paul Ryan hammered the Obama administration for not heeding the calls for better security in an area where everyone knew that al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist terror networks had grown significantly since Obama and NATO decapitated the Qaddafi regime. Biden’s defense? Claim ignorance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fexVQ4eYfhY

During the vice presidential debate Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden said the administration “did not know” that personnel working at the American embassy in Libya had requested more security before the deadly attack on Sept. 11.

As Biden was discussing the attack, Martha Raddatz, the debate moderator, cut in.

“And they wanted more security there,” Raddatz said.

“But we weren’t told they wanted more security there,” Biden responded. “We did not know they wanted more security there.”

That assertion runs counter to evidence and testimonies that were presented at aHouse Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday, where the committee released five memos requesting additional security, and witnesses from the State Department confirmed that those requests had been denied.

But this was contradicted by State Department officials just this week, in testimony before a congressional panel and in unclassified cables released by a congressional committee. “All of us at post were in sync that we wanted these resources,” said Eric Nordstrom, the top regional security officer in Libya earlier this year. A Utah national guardsman who led a security team, Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, said: “We felt great frustration that those requests were ignored or just never met.”

Just taking Biden at his word, we’d have to believe that (a) the State Department had no special concern over personnel in eastern Libya, where the weak central government can’t even deploy a police force, (b) the White House was unaware that al-Qaeda had expanded its operations in the region, and (c) no one remembered that the anniversary of 9/11 was approaching. That’s a shocking level of incompetence to confess on national TV. Small wonder that CNN’s tracking group considered this Joe Biden’s lowest point of the debate.

Furthermore, one has to wonder how the intelligence community will react to Biden’s bus-tossing them during the debate, too:

The Obama administration has been under fire for initially linking the attack on the U.S. Consulate to an anti-Islam video made in the U.S. before later acknowledging that that the attack was an act of terrorism, not a protest that turned violent.

Biden said the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, was repeating what intelligence sources had told her when she blamed the video as a “proximate cause” of the violence in an interview five days after the attack.

“The intelligence community told us that,” Biden said. “As they learned more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment.”

Vice President Joseph Biden speaks only for himself and President Barack Obama, and neither man was aware that U.S. officials in Libya had asked the State Department for more security before the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, a top White House official told The Cable.

Biden has come under fire for saying at Thursday night’s debate, “We weren’t told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security there.”

The Cable asked Deputy National Security Advisor for Communications Ben Rhodes whether Biden was speaking for the entire Obama administration, including the State Department, which acknowledged receiving multiple requests for more Libya security in the months before the attacks. Rhodes said that Biden speaks only for himself and the president and neither of them knew about the requests at the time.

So … it’s official that no one at the White House had a clue what was happening in a mess Obama helped create in eastern Libya? Words fail me.

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This is the same excuse the Obama administration pulled with Fast And Furious: We knew nothing, NOTHING, about these awful things that were happening in the government we’re in charge of. Seems to me Obama has succeeded in building an administration not to solve problems, but to obscure them.

Socratease on October 12, 2012 at 12:36 PM

Or, there is a shadow government at work here that does everything in secret, and keeps the President and the Cabinet in the dark to preserve their deniability and keep them away from the dirty work.

Totally OT, but there’s a marine/boating dealership I pass everyday on my way to work and I just noticed that there is a simple folding chair placed catty-cornered on their property, facing the oncoming work flow traffic. It is, obviously, an ‘empty chair,’ and I’m wondering if this quiet symbol is something that other’s are noticing in their neck of the woods as well…

They knew about the series of attacks in Benghazi so there excuse is that they didn’t get a request for increased security? Sorry, but you should have been proactive like the British and close the consulate down unless you were going to provide a lot more security.

Don’t you see, we had to say it was the video, because we promised the OIC, less than a year ago, that we’d find a way to implement best practices on tamping down on criticizing Islam:

Hillary’s actions just November of 2011 tell us why: [h/t JihadWatch]

The OIC’s foremost target is truthful dialogue about Islam, which it calls “Islamophobia” and claims hysterically is a “a crime against humanity” that must be criminalized. In line with that initiative, back in July, Obama’s State Department reached a Sharia blasphemy agreement with OIC in Turkey. Hillary Clinton actually said this to the OIC:

We each have to work to do more to promote respect for religious differences in our own countries. In the United States, I will admit, there are people who still feel vulnerable or marginalized as a result of their religious beliefs. And we have seen how the incendiary actions of just a very few people, a handful in a country of nearly 300 million, can create wide ripples of intolerance.

She wasn’t referring to Islamic jihadists. Clinton meant that the “ripples of intolerance” were those fighting against those jihadists.

Clinton went on to say:

We also understand that, for 235 years, freedom of expression has been a universal right at the core of our democracy. So we are focused on promoting interfaith education and collaboration, enforcing antidiscrimination laws, protecting the rights of all people to worship as they choose, and to use some old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming, so that people don’t feel that they have the support to do what we abhor.

She met in secret with them, no outside people allowed, to find the “best practices” for squelching criticism of “all” religions. Then the US did not object and was part of consensus of UN resolution 16/18, decrying blasphemy and the like, and you can see she’s been waiting for just the right video she could hang her hat on for the unrest. No doubt they just googled something against Islam, and this poor Copt’s video was the first one they came up with.

A nickel says the Google analytics didn’t spike until the CIA knew there were already going to be demonstrations on 9/11.

No way will Bill Clinton allow Hillary to take the rap for this. Leaks from State Dept will soon commence.

This makes for some great Super Pac ads — for weeks and months both Obama and Biden too busy to attend national security briefings while al-Qeada is planning a major attack in Libya. Obama attends non-stop celebrity parties and late nite TV events instead of showing up for work.

JUST like I thought…Obama is trying to throw Hillary under the bus over this. I knew it would come down on her in the end. Listening to Carny spin this was disgusting. “Security measures are done through the State Department.” So, he’s giving armor to the President, and placing ALL blame for lack of security and intelligence on the State Department (aka Hillary Clinton).

Vice President Joseph Biden speaks only for himself and President Barack Obama, and neither man was aware that U.S. officials in Libya had asked the State Department for more security before the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, a top White House official told The Cable.

So, maybe Obama should have showed up to all of those missed national security briefings, eh?

Obama, as the CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE MILITARY, along with his VICE PRESIDENT, the man who would step into Obama’s position should Obama become, for any reason, unable to fulfill his role as President of the United States of America knew nothing of the requests for more security for the consulate in Benghazi a region known to be unstable, teaming with terrorists of all stripe and ilk, and full of former Gadaffi supporters, heading into the anniversary of 9/11, with the entire middle east falling under the control of the Salafists and Ihkwan ( AKA Muslim Brotherhood) like dominoes.

If this is, in fact, the case, Obama and Biden should be FIRED post haste. There is even the distinct possibility that charges of dereliction of duty should be filed and prosecuted.

Uh, did Joe Biden and Barack Obama know that their ambassador to Libya and three other American’s were killed in Libya on 9/11? Has anyone told them? Or, did Joe only find out last night?

He’s a mess. Though, honestly, this is a herring of some color, if not red (to avoid the worn out version of the phrase). They can claim they didn’t know about State Department cable traffic. Fine. It’s splitting hairs but not a “lie” as I would characterize it.

The deception here is not related to what the White House knew before the event, but rather what they knew and told the American public after the event (and not what they knew within 24 hours, in order to “classify” the event as “terror-related”, but what they knew most likely within 2.4 hours – certainly the information was in hand long before the actual classification was made). What they knew, when they knew it (as I say, probably within hours – after all, a special response team was dispatched and participated in the fight and the evacuation – you don’t do that for a dust-up in a movie theatre between some upset Star Wars fans), and what they told the American people for days and days and days.

It’s the cover-up, trying to save the Obama “I saved the Middle East with a speech in Cairo” fantasy at all costs. That’s the story, so we should avoid getting distracted by debates over what Joe Biden knew before the attack about State Department cable traffic. It’s a diversion from the larger, sinister point.

We also understand that, for 235 years, freedom of expression has been a universal right at the core of our democracy. So we are focused on promoting interfaith education and collaboration, enforcing antidiscrimination laws, protecting the rights of all people to worship as they choose, and to use some old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming, so that people don’t feel that they have the support to do what we abhor.

It’s the cover-up, trying to save the Obama “I saved the Middle East with a speech in Cairo” fantasy at all costs. That’s the story, so we should avoid getting distracted by debates over what Joe Biden knew before the attack about State Department cable traffic. It’s a diversion from the larger, sinister point.

Barack Machiavelli is in the White House. Nation Beware.

IndieDogg on October 12, 2012 at 1:08 PM

I agree, IndiDogg, but I also think its significant that Obama is already trying to throw Hillary under the bus. She still (and by default her husband) has a LOT of followers on the Democrat side of the aisle. If this starts causing an in-fight between State and the White House…and Hillary loses and is tossed to the dogs…who do you think they will in turn support for the Presidency on November 6 and tell their followers to vote for? I knew Obama would do this after the election…and before if he got desperate…but I didn’t think THIS far before the election. We have Biden to thank for this little fruit dropping into our laps.

Decades ago, I got a speeding ticket for going 60 in a 35 in my first car, a little cheapie called a Chevette Scooter that I bought new as a teenager. It wasn’t a powerful car, so when I went before a judge to defend myself, in the brilliance of my teenage know-it-allness, my defense was “I’m sorry Judge, it was downhill, and I didn’t think my car could go that fast!”

The two most important points I take away from how this topic is evolving:

1. the Obama Administration’s State Department is incompetent, and

2. the President and Vice President are isolated from their own Administration.

I think I would advise the Romney people to drop mentioning the attempted cover-up and focus exclusively on executive ineptness in foreign policy. That can be related a whole lot better to mismanagment of the economy and “in over his head” overall.

Everything is subordinate to the Dems’ desire to hold onto their jobs and political power. They couldn’t care less about dead Americans or their families.

All that was missing was Hillary laughing on camera at Ambassador Stevens’ funeral, then wiping away fake tears after noticing she’s been caught on camera, just like her husband did at Ron Brown’s service.

This is just the first shot. Get ready for leaks to start coming out from both the intelligence community and the Clinton machine putting all the blame on Obama and the White House and on each other.

It will turn into a cycle of blame.

This is what happens when you have a man who likes the title of president but does not want to do the job of president. People get killed, no one takes responsibility, and every Messiah for themselves.

This entire administration is lost in a thick fog without a compass or a map. Unfortunately, when they run aground and their boat sinks we’ll all be on it.

rplat on October 12, 2012 at 1:34 PM

Yep, the saddest and most alarming part is that this ‘admin is lost in a thick fog and without a compass or a map’ together with half of the country. The other enlightened half will suffer the consequences as well.

It looks to me like Biden may have started a chain of events last night, with his Benghazi denial, that will put Hillary Clinton in a position to bring down the 0bama presidency – if she’s got the goods.

0bama and Clinton have both disappeared on this issue – in mutual self-defense.

Now that Biden has opened Pandora’s Box, and the White House has been forced to break radio silence by blaming Hillary’s people, this could get ugly… if, and ONLY if… the media does its job.

Given the corrupted state of the media, it looks to me like congressmen like Issa, Chaffetz, Gowdy et al are the only ones with the power to shake the tree until the coconuts and maybe the monkey fall down.

This is just the first shot. Get ready for leaks to start coming out from both the intelligence community and the Clinton machine putting all the blame on Obama and the White House and on each other.

It will turn into a cycle of blame.

This is what happens when you have a man who likes the title of president but does not want to do the job of president. People get killed, no one takes responsibility, and every Messiah for themselves.

Sort of the motto of modern Democrat Party…

William Eaton on October 12, 2012 at 1:40 PM

Dems in close Senate races are not going to be happy with this implosion which will lead to a circular firing squad (I’m presuming Romney has already got the Presidency wrapped up)

Incompetence is a reason to fire people.
I don’t care how much you love OBama & the smell of his a$$ bcs your head is so far up there it’s all you can smell.
This level of incompetence is DANGEROUS & these people need to go.

This whole lot should have been impeached long ago for simple dereliction of duty.

Just reading the Air-Force One odometer and maintenance records, including nonstop overtime pay to keep one bird in the air at all times while the other is being fixed, would be enough to get the ball rolling.

Good leaders take responsibility for what happens under their leadership, whether they knew or not.
Bcs ultimately, they are to blame bcs they are in charge.
This is one of the tenets of leadership.
And Obama has no clue.
He needs to be gone, whether you’re a Dem or not. JUST bcs of this AND Fast & Furious.

I wasn’t being racist by using the coconut tree and monkey metaphor…. but actually it really would look apropos to see a treed 0bama clinging to the top of the tree and refusing to come down, while Congress shakes the tree and all the coconuts fall.

“There are people that are concerned (about the timeline for withdrawal) but not the Joint Chiefs. That was their recommendation in the Oval Office to the President of the United States of America. I sat there. I’m sure you’ll find someone who disagrees with the Pentagon. I’m positive you’ll find that in the military. But that’s not the case here.”

– Joe Biden, debate

Lie. The Joint Chiefs did NOT recommend a timeline. In fact, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a House hearing that he supports THE PRESIDENT’S PLANS, but Mullen said they are “MORE AGGRESSIVE AND INCUR MORE RISK THAN HE CONSIDERS PRUDENT.”.

So in other words Obama had no clue what was going on, because he was too busy hanging out on TV shows and going to fundraisers to be troubled with figuring out what happened. I mean that is not his job. His job is to jet around the country, flirt with ancient liberal female reporters, and get some cash…also maybe get in a few rounds of golf..

That is basically what they are saying…we left it all to Hillary…it was her job.

There is no leadership in this country. Obama accepts responsibility for nothing and constantly attempts to shift blame elsewhere. If he was a military platoon leader he would have been fired for incompetence long ago. This gaggle of dolts has got to go before the nation suffers irreparable harm.

This is just the first shot. Get ready for leaks to start coming out from both the intelligence community and the Clinton machine putting all the blame on Obama and the White House and on each other.

It will turn into a cycle of blame.

William Eaton on October 12, 2012 at 1:40 PM

Not likely until after the election, if ever. (As much as I’d love a major blue on blue death match just before the big vote).

The Clintons are first and foremost Party people, as in all about the good of the Dem party and retaining power. The couple will not diminish their influence, which is wholly derived from the esteem of the political Party they’ve made careers in.

Makes you wonder if those security requests (that the WH claims it didn’t know about) would have been included in one of those face-to-face security briefing meetings that the President kept skipping out on…

1: The WH knew about the security situation, which makes Biden a liar.

2: The WH did not know about the security situation, which makes Obama incompetent.

Kind of hard to spin this one.

Random Numbers (Brian Epps) on October 12, 2012 at 2:10 PM

You’ve missed possibility number three: The WH did not know about the situation, but it’s not Joe or Barky’s fault – it lands, with a dull thud, on Hillary’s plate. “Hillary is a poopy-head, and never told us!”

Unless they can just stonewall the media into making this all go away (“Squirrel!”), how can they avoid putting Hillary under the bus? Which raises the question: is Bill still physically strong enough to raise the kind of holy hell this would normally trigger, or is he a paper tiger, a spent force?

Heh, maybe if one of the most sophisticated consumer of news on the planet :) had attended more of the intel briefings, he and his buffoon of vp would have known more about the security needs in Benghazi…

The Clintons are first and foremost Party people, as in all about the good of the Dem party and retaining power. The couple will not diminish their influence, which is wholly derived from the esteem of the political Party they’ve made careers in.

RepubChica on October 12, 2012 at 2:10 PM

I can guarantee you that the intel community are not ‘party people’, and the most damning leaks for fhe O campaign will come from them, not from the Clintons. After all Billary gets her info from the intel community, not the other way round.

So … it’s official that no one at the White House had a clue what was happening in a mess Obama helped create in eastern Libya? Words fail me.

There is no way, of course, for Obama (or Biden) to conceive of the notion of taking responsibility, since they’ve never lived in the real world, but a CEO is ultimately responsible for the poor judgment of the people he selected to run the State Dept. If indeed they didn’t know, which I frankly don’t believe for a minute.

These guys are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic now. The iceberg has hit and the ship is going to sink.

rockmom on October 12, 2012 at 12:50 PM

Yup…two choices. Either Hillary takes it in the rear and resigns or stays on in disgrace (yeah, right) or pretty much everyone in the White House has to admit to either lying through their teeth or being functionally retarded.

Rep. Issa has moved this to the top of his stack. At the very least, Hillary is going to get a serious black eye, if not forced to resign. Hopefully the stain of this heinous failure to perform the basic functions of their jobs will bring justice to the incompetents in this administration. And, that’s pretty much all of them.

Anyone else notice this one? Biden was talking about Syria, and was mentioning how we have been talking to all our allies in the region, you know Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Yemen….
NO MENTION OF ISRAEL!!!
I’ll bet the Israelis noticed.